


Bathtub Gin

by amieangie



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, Dorks in Love, Eventual Smut, Everyone Is Alive, F/M, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Oral Sex, Romance, Semi-Public Sex, kinda slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:49:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24886360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amieangie/pseuds/amieangie
Summary: Kakashi dropped his cigarette. As soon as he left, he was stopping by the hospital, completely alien to the fact she was boiling the illegal booze in her bathtub he was hunting at that very moment.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi
Comments: 11
Kudos: 25





	1. The truck driver incident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gin was the predominant drink in the United States during the Prohibition-Era at 1920's and "Bathtub gin" was developed in response. Because the preferred sort of bottle was too tall to be topped off with water from a sink, they were filled from a bathtub tap. 
> 
> In a way to make money in the broken economy of the 20's to sustain a widowed mother, an ill mother and a child, Sakura finds herself breaking rules she never lost sleep over and crossing lines she never drew.

It was a raining ugly day. The sky was absent of any hint of blue, just a deep, dark shade of gray. If she didn’t look at the clock she could be lost in time, not knowing if it was six in the morning or in the afternoon. The clouds were far from white, matching the sky behind them. 

For a spring morning, the sky sure as hell seemed as far from the warmth it was usual for the season. Her hair looked pale in days like these — she liked it this way. She wished her hair was gray.

Sakura didn't care. She liked the colour gray and she liked rainy days. Something about the way the air shifts, restless, all the clouds running to keep up, the smell of the rain, the ruffling of her hair. She missed having her hair ruffled by her father, so the breeze would have to do it. 

The rain began to pour swiftly outside the cold walls of the hospital. 

Sakura knocked lightly on the door. 

"Tsunade?" she called uncertain. Considering it was the end of a month and a nasty car crash happened seven in the morning, leaving four badly injured, three in a stable condition, one without a scratch — and one casualty. 

She was at the end of her shift, sighing happily after being locked up for 18 hours when the sirens buzzed, loud and bright. 

Everytime the sirens buzzed, her heart skipped a beat. Sakura fucking hated sirens. Tsunade was probably the only person that hated them more than she did — the sight of Jiraya would haunt her forever. 

A truck lost the control over the wet road and crashed onto two cars. The truck driver was the one left unscathed. A child was the casualty. The parents haven't woken up yet to receive the news. The mother left the surgery room only half an hour ago. The father was at the ICU, but stable. Her hands were stiff and the only good thing about the day was the weather. 

And, well, the person that she delivered the news. The fucking hot cop, as Ino liked to call him, was the object of her affection for a while now.

The first time she laid eyes on him she was just leaving the surgery room, shaking off her bloodied gloves and trashing her apron at the nearest bin, leaving the hospital by the back door. She was crying. You lose patients everyday. You learn to cope. But there's always a death or two that shake you off the thrill. This was one of those deaths. 

She left and was about to light a cigarette she stole from the victims pocket — yeah, weird and maybe sick, but he wasn't going to smoke them anyway — when she realised she didn't smoke and she had no lighter. She was kicking at the door when she noticed him. 

He was leaning on a lamp post, a book at his hand and a cigarette between his fingers. He was a hard contrast against the hospital walls. 

Her feet got kind of stuck on the hospital back door from the last kick and she almost lost her ground, but managed to hold her grace and don’t fall straight there. Setting her standart hospital shoe and guaranteeing the door didn’t take too much damage she unfurled her clothes and shaked off the anger of the dead woman’s cigarette choice — Sakura fucking despised cherry cigarette. 

The back of the hospital didn't held any of its front door majesty. No. It was a lot of bricks piled on top of other bricks, no painting, no flashing orange colour neither. It was an weary type of orange — completely unlike Naruto's jacket, the one she poured over her shoulders as she bargained outside the building. 

The floor was a vanishing shade of gray, that was turning more and more between a pale white with dark stains. The ambulances were at a poor position, the logo almost completely faded and the tires were so covered in dirt it was hard to even distinguish the wheels. 

And there, there he was. 

The blue jacket was rolled to his elbows, a dark gray shade shirt was under the jacket, two bottoms popped open revealing a milky skin. His pants were a dark, dark shade of blue that could be black if the light was poor. He had fingerless dark gray gloves and a pale gray hair, almost white, defying gravity as it was nothing, spiking everywhere. He had a scar down his left eye and a surgical mask hanging at his chin, the cigarette finding its way every now and then. 

The book at his hand was just as screaming orange as Naruto's and she almost — almost — blushed when she recognized the cover. 

You can't blame a woman for wanting a distraction during her 20 hour shifts with minor occurrences. After a few months, she didn't feel a rat of shame for reading softcore porn in public (public being her fellow doctors and some nurses. She wasn't kicking in patients doors with dirty, naughty scenes in her hands. Yet.) 

Beside his darling clothing, he was somehow standing out in the dark alley. Maybe it was his mysterious aura or his hair or just her blood shot eyes. 

He was indeed a hot fucking cop and she was standing in front of him without realising. 

"Got fire?" Well put, Haruno. 

He lifted his eyes from the book and his lower face was covered by smoke and some shadows the lamppost cast. (The lamppost. Yeah. The lamp post was to blame on his whole "standing out" in the middle of a dark, sad back of the hospital. Not the way his slender fingers closed around the cigarette nor the way that just his eyes screamed handsome. Or the fact she was horny — blame PMS. But she was washed out of every thought as her dead patience popped on her mind — her cherry cigarette at her fingers. 

She would never admit out loud, but she'd rather lighting years more to ogle him and his ass every time he walked away than to read her porn. He looked like the main character, she admitted only to herself. At night. After a unexpected wet dream. Shit.)

But right at the moment she was caught in his dark orbs and the grief that was still rolling slowly off her eyes. 

"Sure." he said with a pretty smile on his voice. 

She was ready to take the lighter from his hand when he lit the fire in front of him, waiting for her to place the fag on her lips bend her head forward. Once the smoke hit the back of her throat, she stepped back and made her best effort not to cof. The smell of tobacco filled the air and she checked — red filter. 

The box was from cherry cigarettes and she felt now even worse for her patient. She got mad over the woman’s cigarette choice and in the end it was her favourite. And none of this should matter, but she felt like she owned her an apology for that — except she would never be able to.

She advertised her eyes down, but didn't step away from his personal space. She didn't notice she was that close until the puffs of smoke of his own cigarette were directed towards the sky in the sake of not blowing it to her face. 

"Sorry." she murmured. 

"Rough day?" 

He closed his book and put it in his back pocket. _Violence,_ she recognized. 

She couldn't find her voice, the memories of the three hour surgery flooding her mind, so she just nodded. He lowered his eyes to her frame and made a small noise with his tongue, clearing his throat short after. "Sorry I asked. Didn't mean to bribe." he said apologetically. 

"Oh, no." she snapped her head up, eyes still glowing. "No. It's just... Well, rough day..." she tried to swallow the tears. "One of those days..." her lips trembled and she had to place her hand over her forehead and take a shallow breath. "I'm the one who should apologize. Thanks for, uh, the fire." Smooth, Haruno. Blame it on the tears. She turned her back to him when he laid ever so lightly his hand on her shoulder. 

"Want to talk about it?" he sounded uncertain, as if he himself was shocked he said something. 

"Thank you, but... Ok, yes. Maybe. I don't know. It happens sometimes and sometimes it hurts and there's nothing I can do, 'cause I did all I could and even then I wasn't able to save them. Like... I know, I know. People die. Everyday. All the time. Specially in a hospital. But I sometimes wonder if I really did all I could, you know? That maybe, maybe I could've done more and if I hadn't do this and chose to do that, they would be alive." Shockingly enough, she wasn't crying anymore, but she sounded a bit nasal. "Sorry — again. I'm rambling. You just asked out of niceness."

"Maa, I really wanted to know." his eye crinkled a bit and it made her feel at ease.

She took a long drag.

"And I am sorry. I know how it feels." he smiled a bit more, his eyes creasing further. They both took another drag and he spoke while holding the smoke. She was just sucking onto the cigarette and blowing carelessly.

He began to say "There are some days-" 

" _KAKASHI!_ " He cringed. He turned around and both faced a man waving his hand. "Where the fuck have you been? Gai wouldn't shut the fuck up and we have a call at Third with Seventh and here you are reading porn..." he was walking in their direction and trailed off when he saw her. For a moment his brows furrowed but then he shot her a wide grin that dropped flirty. "Oh, hi there. Is this old man troubling a beautiful girl like you?" 

He walked into the light of the lamppost and she noticed he had a scar over his left eye as well, but he had black spiked hair and something soft and childish in his smile, in the middle of the malice he was trying to put in it. She laughed. It was nice to laugh blowing smoke and wiping the track of tears off her face. Maybe she should've been a cop instead of a doctor. 

"Obito!" Kakashi, she deduced, called him out at the same time he rolled his eyes and seemed to apprehend the other man. 

"Oh, no, he is not bothering me at all." Her smile was wide and warm and her big green eyes were shining bright in the middle of her reddened eyes. "He was being just the company I needed." It definitely sounded out more like flirting than she intended, but, then again, in all her years at the hospital she never saw them before, so she probably wouldn't be seeing them again, so slipping a flirty tone wasn't that much of a deal. 

"Well, count on me if you need to." The man — Obito — blinked and she should be outraged — she hated when guys hit on her out of nowhere — but he seemed too sweet. 

"Sorry 'bout that." Kakashi said, and she wasn't sure if he was talking about his partner or her patients or the fact he didn't ask for her number. 

"Drive carefully." she shoot over his arm as he was walking away and the glimpse she took of his face — he was putting the mask back in place — made her insides tingle and then _she_ regretted not asking his number. 

"You've been spending way too many time with Genma." she heard him say to his partner as he slapped the back of his head and then they were gone and her cigarette burnt out to the filter and she was left there, wondering if she would ever, ever meet him again. 

She shook her head and decided that, high probably, not. So she just walked inside and took a deep, long breath before gathering courage to give the news to the family of her patient. 

(He would only admit many, many years later that he couldn't shake the sight out of his mind. She was like a splash on a white, boring canvas. Everything about her screamed life and held promises of better, warmer days, even though she probably didn't knew it. The pink, green and orange blur he saw entering the building put a smile on his face that was hard to shake. He'd never seen someone like that before. She was the complete opposite of him. Her eyes held so much life and her smile touched him like rays of morning sun. He realised too late, when he left the car to walk into the third crime scene that night, and if wasn't even 8 PM, that he didn't know her name.)

* * *

"Tsunade?" She opened the door and was welcomed by a dark office, her superior, — master, teacher, friend, mother — was staring out the window, a bottle in her hand. "I just got out of the surgery." Tsunade left about half an hour ago, after saving two other lifes and checking on the living, save patients. Sakura knew she would be in a bad shape. Losing a kid is always harder than anything else, but she knew the woman would be blaming herself for not being able to do _nothing._ The child arrived dead. "Shizune is almost done and, well..." She didn't want to say it. Don't make me say it, don't make me say it, her brain was crying. Leave it to Ino or Shizune or just leave it, it was pleading. But she knew she had to deliver the news sooner than later. "We had to call the police. Turns out he was drunk." She eyed the bottle again. 

Tsunade walked away from the window and hid the alcohol in a fake drawer. The soon-to-be Vice President of the hospital couldn't be catch by no one but Sakura and Shizune drinking. She knew pretty well the implications, but some days were just too much and this was one of those. More often than she liked to admit, the bottles were her only solace. Her voice wasn't shaking anymore when she spoke. 

"Good, Sakura. Are they here yet?"

"No, not yet."

"Okay." With a sight the circled her table and went to Sakura's direction at the door closed behind her back. "I'll go to meet them."

She made a gesture to open the door, but Sakura didn't move and close it shut again with her back, her arms holding the files in front of her chest, her hair tied up and sweat drying from her temple. 

"I'll go." She said adamantly. 

"What?" The older woman's voice reached a pitch that usually meant bad, bad news to whoever was in the same room.

"I can smell the booze in you." She swallowed and finished before all the courage left her body and sunk to cringe under her superior's hard honey eyes, circled by deep bags. "I'll go."

She was surprised when the woman gave in without a fight. She just sat in her chair and looked out of the window again, waving a hand without turning. 

Things were bad.

* * *

"Sakura"

"Hum"

"I — I really, really don't like this. It is... you know what I mean. You know what happens —"

"I know. I know what would happen. But, Ino, I need this. We need this. Just hear me out."

"It is too risky"

"I know, Ino, I know. But we just can't anymore."

"We both have jobs..."

"That don't pay shit. Why the hell would we be having this bloody chat with _candles?_ That's not the romantic night I was expecting when I finally lit candles. It was intended to fuck and not realise how fucked we are."

"Woah, girl, your mouth is dirtier than this — this bathtub"

"Don't offend the bathtub! She's going to be our best friend for God knows how long."

"First: _she?_ Does the bathtub has a name now as well, Sakura? And I can tell you precisely for how long: until we get fucking arrested."

"We won't."

"You don't know?"

"Yes, I do."

"You don't!"

"I do!" She sighed, trying to low her voice. "Ino, please, I need you."

"Yeah, I know. If you didn't need me, would you help me still?"

"What, girl? Of course. Why wouldn't I? We're in this together." Her voice died and the candles casted shadows in her face that made her look ten years older. She felt ten years older. 

"Do you miss him?"

"I always will."

"I miss him too."

"Which?"

"Both, Sakura. Them both."

"Do you believe in hell?"

"No and neither do you."

"Maybe I do... This — this life we're having, well, maybe hell was better."

"Don't say stuff like that!" Ino grabbed Sakura's hand in hers and placed them in her lap, squeezing them. "We're not at hell. I know sometimes it might sound like hell when we hear the neighbor next door having loud, weird sex—"

"Or when the garbage truck decides to stop by at 2 AM—"

"When Tsunade stumbles drunk in the stairs—"

"When Tsunade break things after stumbling in the stairs—"

"When the other neighbor does that yelling slash praying scary thing—"

"When your son cries—"

"When Mrs. Couch decides to pretend she can sing—

"God, Frank Sinatra cringes."

"When you sing, as well—

"Bite me."

They both laughed, small, breathy laughs that could be mistaken by sighs, but they still had each other. 

"Does he cry that loud?"

"Oh, he does. Especially when you are at work and have no clue on how make him stop crying. Ino, he is a nightmare." The blonde woman was about to hide her face in her hands when Sakura lifted her chin. "And the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Even when he pissed in my new shirt."

"That shirt was horrendous. He did you a favour." 

Sakura just rolled her eyes. 

"Will you hear me out now?" Ino simply nodded, eyes facing the ground the second Sakura let go of her. "We can do it. You are an expert, you are even _respected_ in your line of work. I am lucky to have you, not the other way 'round." When the blond locks covered her left eye when she lifted her head, her mouth already open to speak, Sakura held a finger in front of her. "Shh. I know you were about to self depreciate yourself again. Ino, it kills me to see you like that. Don't you miss your old self back?"

"The not widow slash not yet a single mother slash working at a bus stop's coffee shop to pay bills and not having money for the train?" She lifted one pale eyebrow in defiance. "Yeah, I miss it."

"I even miss your sassy comments."

"Not gonna let you forget you said that."

Sakura just settled in rolling her eyes again. "Please, look at us. Look at your father, your mother, your son. Look at my mom and at me and at Tsunade. We can't..." Her voice died and all the fire left her eyes, leaving her staring blankly at the ground, hollow eyes. She had to swallow twice before being able to speak. "Did I tell you about what Tsunade told me this morning?" Ino shook her head, her blue orbs big, so big it reflected on the walls. "Mom is dying."

They just sat there in silence. Ino felt she was about to throw up at any minute. They were truly in hell. Sakura's fiance and Ino husband's killed themselves when the Market Broke. They weren't the only ones. For months, she hesitated in walking around tall buildings, fearing that one corpse could be at her feet any moment or a body would shove her to the ground. She didn't see their bodies, but Sakura did. She performed the autopsy. Tsunade tried to force her to take a week, just a day off, but she refused. She buried herself so hardly into work she wasn't there to deliver Ino's baby. She cried the whole night. She decided then to name the child "Itachi" even if she hated Sasuke and the kid was absolutely a hundred percent _not_ alike the Uchihas, it seemed to soothe Sakura's heart. The baby had blonde hair and piercing blue eyes — just like his mother and father. 

It is funny, in a really twisted way, how things turned out to be. Sakura was finally setting down with Sasuke and she was happily married with the last person she thought she would: Naruto. 

So they both were left widowed, as to match Sakura's mom. 

"Isit becauseof yourfather?" Ino blurted out, the words crumbling atop one another. 

"What?" Sakura's voice was sweet, like honey dropping into warm milk when she was a child and couldn't sleep. Sakura usually was more like a hurricane than a soft breeze, but her own weather was weighing her down lately. 

"Is it because of your father?" For some reason, their voices weren't above a whisper anymore. 

"Why would that be?" That was a bitterness, like green lemon salted in open wounds. 

"Because he was a cop."

"You think — wait, let me catch up. You think I want to do something illegal for us to survive because the bastard of my father is a cop?" Both her eyebrows were raised, about to vanish in her now-to-long fringe. "Hum" Sakura looked up, thinking about it and when she returned her eyes, her gaze was full of a devilish malice and a small grin planted on her lips. It was rare to see Sakura smiling this days. "I bet shrinks would have an heart attack analysing this, but, well, no. I guess. But the fact he is a cop works for us."

"How so, Sakura?" She was tired. Deadly tired. Her voice was deadpan and emotionless. Being a mom sure mess with your hormones.

"Because I know a lot on how they catch criminals, so I know exactly what to do so when won't get caught."

"That's why you're so confident?"

"No. I am confident because my best friend is a beast at chemistry — which I will never understand why you chose such a boring profession — and I am a incredible medic whose payment is more shitty than shit and" She said profusely "we have Tsunade."

"Tsunade?"

"Do you know someone that drinks more than she does?"

 _Your ex boyfriend_ was the answer that lingered in the air, but there is no need to poke the dead. Literally. "Tsuna is our best shot. And I am also. You are. We are! Jeez!" Sakura was laughing, truly laughing. She had that wide smile on her face that began to show a few age marks. They didn't just feel 10 years older, they were indeed getting older. The economy was broken and she had heard about bathtub gins and bootleggers. Hell, even homebrew. Everyone had their needs. Mouths to feed, kids to grow, bills to pay. The Estate was dead, but the money was pretty much alive and killing more and more each day. Ino knew Sakura was right. "Ino, you can't deny it. We are fit for it!"

"But how — how are we—?"

"The law has a huge loophole. Well served is Wheeler—"

"The Wheeler, the politician, the one who basically created the Prohibition and he is at your list of 'Ways To Go'? We're getting helped by the man that screw us?!"

"Oh, Ino, shit, no. Well, yes, but no. Here. I took from the newspaper last week."

A crumpled piece of paper had a dark fat line saying " **The man behind the Prohibition** " and had a picture of a middle aged man who looked deathly wealth. She recognized the newspaper. It was almost a 'Resistance'. It butched politicians and the police, showing here and there how they weren't serving the people, but actually ruining them. 

_"T_ _he person largely responsible for writing the Volstead Act in 1919 was Wayne Wheeler, head of the powerful, pro-dry Anti-Saloon League. Wheeler was instrumental in persuading Congress to vote for the law."_ The rest of the paper had a few words to be distinguished, but most of it was illegible because the sheet was wet and torn. 

Sakura was looking at her with the same enthusiasm you see in a child at Christmas morning and the mixed with the amusement of seeing the gifts, but the mischief of those child that sneak upon his parents and was already opening the gifts. Sakura was a mix of that, bubbling with excitement and at the same time looking diabolical, knowing she overcame law itself. 

"You see, he had to allow some loopholes in order the Congress approve the law and those were that licensed doctors are permitted to prescribe whiskey, other distilled spirits (from government-licensed distilleries) and wine as treatments. The law also allows the manufacture and sale of wine used in sacraments or other religious rituals by rabbis, priests, “ministers of the gospel” and their designees. Both loopholes are up to abuse. We don't have the excuse of religion, but sure as hell a doctor can manage. A doctor and her best friend, the incredible pharmacologic!" She finished her sentence with her arms wide open as if showing Ino to a public, letting them know how amazing the object of her drawing attention. 

"Thought you said my job was boring."

"And I also said I'm incredible medic — which I am and which your job actually is, until it makes the difference."

"I make difference! I am the one —"

"Ino, calm down, I'm just messing with you."

"I know, I know." This time Ino succeed on hiding her face in her hands and let out in a strangled voice. "I am just hungry". She sound defeated. Sakura put a hand on her shoulder and leveled her head to meet her eyes.

"And that's precisely why we're doing it. I am worried about you. I am worried about us."

"Does Tsunade... you know, your mom... does she...?"

Sakura shook her head, trying not to look so weighed by the situation, but when your mother is dying and you can't pay for the treatment, something inside you shatter. "It's too expensive. I don't if even with this we will be able to — " She never finished the sentence and Ino didn't need her to. 

Cupping her cheek, she gave the woman in front of her the most reassuring smile she could come up with and said solemnly "We're doing this."


	2. The incident with the Officer Uchiha

When she reached the hall, her eyes burned into gray hair, spiking out the receptionist table. The girl, Aline?, Barbara?, was openly flirting with him - and it wasn't forbidden at all, but Sakura felt like biting her hand of his arm. 

And that's what she did. 

"Thank you, girl. I take it from here." Her voice came hard and inflexible, a perfect portrait Tsunade would be proud of. The girl said something and turned around to give him a smile flashing with white teeth and mischief. Sakura felt like she could go punching something. Which is completely ridiculous. She didn't even know the man. He lit her cigarette once and she was, what?, jealous over the secretary? Times like these she understood why Tsunade drank. 

Despite her sour mood, he gave her a smile and her face broke onto one without her permission. 

"Hi, there."

"Hey." 

"How are you?" Angry, hungry, tired, grieving. 

"I'm fine, just a bit tired." Tired is okay to use in social occasion. Depressed wasn't. "You?"

"Yeah, tired as well. My shift is about to end." The smile on his voice just made hers bigger and, talking to this stranger, small talk it is, in the middle of the cold hall of the hospital, brewing booze back at her place, she felt the beginning of what could be a spark of contentment. 

"Sorry to ask you to come here so late."

"It is pretty early, actually." When she just furrowed he eyebrows in confusion he gave a soft chuckle and boy "It is past seven already." He pointed to a clock with his finger and she thought 

"Jesus, I've been working for 18 hours now?!"

"Eighteen?" His voice was shocked. Apparently, she thought out loud. He whistled. "That's a lot of time. How are you even standing?"

"Duty calls." They laughed and she wanted to dread the subject as much as possible. "So, where is your partner?" His smile dropped just a millimeter and she could see a shadow of disappointment cross his eyes before settling onto resignation.

"Obito, you mean?" The smile on his voice was vanishing and she was caught in the sight. 

"Yeah, I guess. Short black hair, not taller than you, a laugh that reminds me of cute kids running around, bad flirtation?"

"Cute kids?" Amusement was back with on of his eyebrows lifted. 

"Yes!" He laughed, she laughed, man he is hot. "He has a cute kid smile and a very terrible kid's laugh."

"Why a very terrible kid? Can it be both cute and terrible?"

"Oh, yes, it can. Lucky you Itachi isn't here today. He would do everything he could to rip your mask off" as so would I "and pull your hair "as I would gladly "and maybe try to steal your gun. Or your handcuffs, at least" not necessarily onto this, but could do.

"He really sounds like a nightmare." He ran a hand through his hair and if his intention was to settle it, he just made the exact opposite. 

"He really, really is." She knew she probably looked like an idiot, almost giggling at a law enforcement figure, but she was doing her best to don't touch his arms and finish the flirt cycle.

"How old is he?"

"Three and a half."

"Woah, they are demons when they're over two and less than, I don't know, eighteen or so." 

"You have a child?"

"Uh, no, a friend of mine has a daughter. She is lovely, but she is a little devil."

"Well, aren't they all?"

"So, is he yours?"

"Oh, no! He is my best friend's son. He just hangs around here sometimes when she uses the lab."

"She's a doctor too?" No, but she's hot, and I am too tired to feel insecure about Ino not even being here.

"She's a pharmacist, but she comes here once in a while to test some things and drop a few meds."

"It is rare to see a woman as a medic."

"Rarer than you think. It is hard to survive in a mostly all men place and everyone thinks you're a nurse."

"You don't look like a nurse." He was tilting his head to the side and seizing her up. Again, she should feel angry, but she took a quick glance herself. Today, his shirt was buttoned to his wrists, his fingerless gloves were now just gloves and he had the jacket off, the shirt tightly crawling his biceps and, if she tried hard enough on the right light, she could see some shapes of his abs. His neck was exposed, the collar unbuttoned, but his face was still covered with the white mask. 

"I know! But apparently woman aren't allowed to be more than housewives." She shot a dirty glance in the direction of two doctors that just loved make fun of her behind her back and hit on her on her face.  _ Assholes. _

"Those two?" He pointed with his chin in the direction of the fuckers. She nodded. They noticed the pair staring at them. Sakura was burning a hole at their back and she didn't care in the slightest. "Do you know which car is their? I can give them a ticket."

"A ticket? The car is parked." She half giggled, mirth on her eyes. 

"Well, speed limits ticket are ruled out, but I can always fine them for being assholes with an incredibly beautiful doctor I met just other day, smoking in the back. She had those really big green eyes and an orange jacket, that, somehow, matched her pink hair. I just didn't catch her name. Fancy knowing her?" 

Sakura beamed and lean herself on the desk full of piles at her back, holding the file of her case against her chest. "Maybe I do know her." She said, serious. She was gathering courage to ask his number, his address, if he needed a check up, if he was single —

But apparently her serious tone mislead him. 

"Sorry." He reached behind his head and scratched the back of his neck, looking away. "I shouldn't have said that. You are working and I—"

"She was talking to me other day just about a police officer she met. She didn't gave me many details, but she mentioned she forgot —" now or never, girl "to ask for his number."

"That seems unfair." Her face crumbled. Shit. That's why she never hits on any one. The word "sorry" was about to slip out her lips when he spoke. "He doesn't even know her name, but she's trying for his number?"

"Well, life ain't fair." Her grin was full and she knew her cheeks might be rosy, but in her remains of shyness, she managed not running away and cursing herself. Apparently, he was attracted to her too. Or just wanted to know her name. She wished for the former. 

"Well, let's settle this way —"

" _ KAKASHI! _ "

" _ FOREHEAD! _ "

They turned each to a direction. Him, towards the door, where a man in, wait, was that green?, Jesus, a green jumpsuit was walking in his direction, a wide smile that seemed to almost drop out his face, his teeth shining. Coming from the back door, was Ino. And Itachi. And -

Her heart sank. 

"Look, I — I am sorry, but —"

"I am sorry, but —" They turned to each other at the same time. She managed a small smile at his warm eyes. 

"I have to brief you on why we called you guys here —"

"Gai just did."

"A truck driver — Gai — whom — what?"

"Gai" he pointed at the man with that horrendous jacket "He filled me in just now." Wait, what, how? She was the one to tell them. Well, a cop probably can ask around 

— while his partner is flirting shamelessly. "I have to go."

"Yeah, me t— Wait." The sirens were buzzing outside. Her mouth fell open. Shit. If Tsunade ever finds out 

— which she probably would, since she was coming down the stairs.

_ "KAKASHI!" _ Gai, apparently, yelled at the top of his lungs and she was sure the deaf lady at the third floor heard it. "We 'gonna lose him."

Kakashi, then, was pulled by another guard that came out of nowhere and waved at her over his shoulder — Obito — while dragging him out. He manage to mouth "I'm sorry" before the chaos flooded the hall, with all the lights and yelling cars. 

The patient  _ ran away. _

Nice one, Haruno. 

She turned around and her name was just about to be yelled so, so angrily (the lady's next three generation at the third floor would hear it) but it died on Tsunade lips as she took Ino and the visitors in. 

Sakura walked over them, Itachi looking at everywhere, in awe, Ino with too big dark circles and too skinny cheeks and, the image that broke her heart any and every where. If sickness needed a image for its synonym it would be her.

"Hi, mom."

* * *

"Just trust me."

"Sakura..." was said in a warning tone. 

"Calm down!"

"You almost gave me a heart attack when I saw you talking to that cop! Girl, have my hair gone white? Do you know that —"

"It is possible for your hairs to turn white when faced with too strong emotions, as happened with Marie Antoinette when she found out she was going to be decapitated? Yes, Ino. I was the one who told you that." Sakura said rolling her eyes, as she adjusted the blood samples, labeling the other ones. 

"The point" Ino pointed at her with a syringe "is that I almost fucking died. For God's sake. The damn gin is there, going all nice and smooth,  _ hidden _ ."

"It's not that hidden, it's in the bathroom." She was discarding old needles and putting some poop-pots, as Itachi named them, on the refrigerator. She was pretty glad she didn't handle this part of the health care. Even though a guy's — a dead guy — stomach exploded in the middle of an autopsy. Gases. He just blew up and in that moment she knew she wasn't up to deal with poop in a regular basis, which was a slap on her face every time she had to change Itachi. 

"Would you stop acting like it is normal?" Ino was making tests in the pee-pots (Itachi) and looked over to Sakura with one big ass glass, that made her eye twenty times bigger and the sight was both hilarious and scary. 

"It is normal to have a bathtub in a bathroom!" She was going through the blood bags, picking up ten of them and looking for a proper cart. "This is a mess."

"Sakura, sod off. Fuck." She took her gloves off and lowered the glass, moving around the table to catch a blood sample. "I don't know if we can keep doing this."

"Ino" Sakura pointedly said, only a bum of pink hair visible — she was crouched going through the carts at the bottle of one of the tables, dropping some gloves at her head, as she accidentally bumped into a box. — don't break anything — "We just started. We're not into this for two weeks!"

"Time enough to get arrested." Ino crouched beside her and handed her the proper cart she was looking for — thanks — and began analysing the blood sample while taking notes.

"If we were caught now, we can excuse it as ourselves." She banged her head into a open fridge door — shit — watch this big forehead, would you? — oh, fuck you  _ oinc oinc  _ —  _ oinc _ me one mother time and I kick you out — and I come back with my credential — the fuck are— oh, found it. She kept rummaging at the bottom of the fridge who's door she hit her face square and found the IVs she was looking for. "I am making the prescriptions -"

"You  _ what? _ " With a shriek, she dropped her notes and nearly knocked a microscope. 

"For the fifteenth time: calm down! We need those prescriptions." She closed the door with her hips and opened the next one with the tip of her feet. "Just sharing a credential isn't the same as — where are the corns?" She was frowning at the almost empty fridge.

"You brought — you — ya" Now the microscope fell and she barely caught it midair "You brought the ingredients 

_ — found them _

_ here? _ To the hospital?”

"Yeah" Sakura shrugged

"And with alcohol" She shaked a bottle, poorly holding the box with the bags and IVs in her right thigh that was propped up a steel table, her back holding the fridge door open. "That's the best part of working here. We can even stash our stuff here!" The door closed with a loud thoumb. Sakura placed the box on one of the tables and began to arrange the things inside. 

"We're doomed. That's it. We're over. We're dead. Oh my God" Sakura caught Ino by the wrists and took her hands of her face. The woman was about to cry. 

"Ino" She kept her eyes closed, shaking her head. "Ino!" Her face was turned and her eyes closed causing a ugly frown. "Pig!" Finally, she was met with a deathly glare. "Stop. Stop overthinking. If someone ifs to fall, it would be me."

"That's nonsense, Forehe—"

"Swallow the Forehead." Was said with a pointy finger. "Hey,  _ I _ am the doctor.  _ I _ am the one writing the prescriptions. We're doing this at my place—"

"We share the place—"

Sakura shook her head "It's in my name." She held Ino by her shoulder and shook her. "We are going to be okay and if we don't, you will. I need to take care of you, Ino. You don't worry about me. If something ever, ever goes wrong, I will go to the hell and back to make sure it won't fall over you."

"But, Sakura, and your mother?"

"I am doing this for her too. Ino, it would be easy for me to walk away. Leave ma, turn from Tsunade, turn from you and Ita. I could be a coward like my dad and just vanish and start somewhere else when things get too rough. But I am not him." The distaste was full in her face. "I won't quit. I am here to stay."

"And risk everything?" Ino was halfway pleading and halfway agreeing to it. 

"I've got nothing, but you. I'd risk anything." 

A warm smile lighted up her face and the blonde couldn't help but smiling back. Ino turned to leave. "So..." She was getting out of the door, with a file in hand. "What about the hot cop, uh?"

She never heard the answer, as she closed the door at Sakura's face, just in time to avoid a small book.

* * *

"OH, MY GOD, OFFICER UCHIHA JUST GOT  _ SHOT! _ "

At that, Kakashi slumped out of the table he had passed out about thirty minutes ago, half seated, with his back still in his chair, but his head hung and his arms thrown over the table. He looked more like a ragged doll than a cop. And he was drooling. 

The man was known and feared. The worse tugs knew him and feared him. He had quite a reputation. "The youngest police officer of the century" (well, yeah, he was getting that old — but this title makes him look decrepit. No one seemed to remind it was at the end of the 80's, but as people looked at him, it seemed impressive such an young man with that much of a reputation. 

But it sometimes scares women at bars.)

The so called prodigy, son of the legend that Sakumo Hatake was — a man that's seen war, fought in it, came home victorious. And, yet, Kakashi low key dropped the armed forces and decided to go on a more civilian duty. He was tired of the massacres. 

If his country needed him, if another war exploded, he'd be there for his nation, without batting an eyelash. 

But war took its toll on him. Obito fought with him. There they were, his asses freezing, in the front lines, living poorly into trenches, their comrades rotting along the line, a single canter passing hand by hand. He'd seen much more death than he liked to. He cause much more death than he ever wished. Some nights, he would still wake up feelings his hands soaked in blood and hearing the bombs exploding nearby. He remembered dragging their bodies, missing limbs either following in a close trait or simply gone. He lost his eye, for fuck's sake. Obito got half of his face blasted. 

They all had their battle scars. Some deeper, some invisible, some only appeared at sweated temples and nightmares. 

But now, almost ten years after the end of the war, he was sitting in a quiet office downtown, plastering his fingers in doughnuts he didn't like and coffee too weak for his taste. After the suicides, the city went crazy. The gangsters now owned the city. Not just the city, but the whole country. The Prohibition Law was the most pathetic choice of the government in the past millennium. All it did was worsen what was already fucked up. They gave more power to those who operated in the shadows. Now, the shadows were cast in the whole town, glued to the floor and sneaking into houses. Shenanigans roared to life with such strength that couldn't be stopped, any more. 

They worked, day and night, trying to cut every loose tie they could find. But every time they slashed a root, two trees came to life. And that wasn't the option of simply going to the real root of the problem. There wasn't one. Not a single one. There were unaccountable. It came out of control. No matter how much they hunt and catch the gangster, there was always another one nearby just waiting to take his place. 

And, now, normal people were doing it. Bootleggers, brew beer, bathtub gin, homemade wine. The citizens took onto themselves the task of this route of survival. The economy hasn't been so shitty since God knows when. War destroyed families — but the remains that were still alive needed to survive, and, in order to survive in this world, you take whatever you can get. And if moms and paps decided to take the matter onto their own hands, how was he to blame them?

Would you kick a street dog that stole the rest of the fillet you let laid on the plate? Would you blame it for trying to survive?

But the cases were daily and every decision the government took was just making things worse. He lost account on the number of dead, already. 

But at the "ohmygodofficeruchihajustgotshot" Kakashi fell not elegantly hard on the floor, his hands on his weapon in record time, fingers already on the trigger, before even opening his eyes. 

Quite an image: Kakashi Hatake slumped on the floor, his hair just the definition of a mess, drool drying on the corner of his mouth, heavy eyelids and pointing a gun precisely at his on table, flatly ass on the floor.

Obito's laugh was the first that reached his ears. 

When he opened his eyes, the whole bullpen was bent over themselves in a chore of laughter.

And the chaos was instated. 

Kakashi truly contemplated shooting the wall just for the commotion, but decided against it. Didn't they have anyone to interrogate? False leads to fall? Speed tickets? Hit on pretty doctors?

"You should — you should seenyourface" Obito nearly shouted. 

"I think I'm gonna pass out!" Genma said over a boisterous laugh. 

Kakashi simply rolled his eyes and stood up. Apparently, the boss wasn't in, for he wouldn't —

No, no. Scratch that. The boss was at his office drying tears from his eyes, his mustache vibrating while he laughed. 

"I'm gonna order a painting of it and place in my living room"

"Dude, place it across town"

"I want one too" 

He didn't even know who was shouting anymore, just that he was beginning to get really fucking pissed.

"Haha, very funny, children. Done?"

"Ow, Hatake

— apparently not

"Are you getting that decrepit, old man? Did you break a rib? Lost your teeth?"

That guy, he couldn't actually remember his name, but he looked just like a rat. A skinny, annoying rat. Types like this don't last a year. 

"Old man, seems like the age finally caught up on you, uh?"

This one was Ebisu? Kotetsu? Raido?

_ — good one, Izuma _ someone said, patting the guy in the back. Ah. Izuma. Fuck it. 

"Woah, kids, calm down—"

"Seems like the office has made you soft, old man" the first man said in a boost of laughter. 

Obito and Genma were still breathless from how much they were laughing — even Boss didn't say a word. 

Just as he was about to admit the hilarity of the situation the annoying pets — as he called the newbies — began to bark their nonsense shit. 

Lines of "old man" — if those two words were people, they'd be seven feet underground — "getting soft", "too old for the job", "losing his grip", and shit like that. 

But what put the last pin in the coffin was a blurred "And that's how his dad ended, useless and pathetic."

He couldn't find the one that spoke, but as it came from the direction of the stairs, he shoot the adjacent wall. 

The office went dead quiet. 

No one dared to move. 

Kakashi aimed and hit the wall, a small hole, just above one of the few pictures in the bullpen. 

He knew Boss would start to shout any second now. He didn't give a shit. He ran his eyes through the crowd and found the owner of the damned "joke" about his father. 

He pointed the gun at his face. 

The whole office came to life. Gasps and feet dragging filled the air. 

"Kakashi" Gai's voice came from his right, cautious. He didn't care.

He settled the trigger. The small sound filled the building as deafening as a thousand birds chirping. The man, Danzo, was it?, a museum piece that was a former soldier as well, looked at him with his one eye wide. The other one was covered in bandages as was his left arm. He didn't go to field ever since the war. He was just kept there because the former sargent had a soft spot for him. Kakashi couldn't give a shit even if he wanted to. 

With his arm stretched, the gun pointed to the man's face, in the middle of a circle made of the people that stepped back, no one dared to breath. 

Kakashi pulled the trigger then.


	3. The bet about the dimple was not the reason to Fugaku Uchiha's good mood

All that was heard was the loud _click_ of his gun. Empty. 

Some had drawn their eyes shut, some gaped, some took more steps back, some even covered their mouths. Danzo shrink. 

Kakashi lowered his hand and stared at the man. His gaze was cruel and his aura would make small animals — and Gai and Genma and certainly Obito — terrified and eager to get out of the way. Everyone was quiet, eyeing him. 

The next morning would be full of "he lost his mind", but he didn't give a fuck. 

Danzo fought along he _and_ his father. He had his fucking other arm because his father saved him. He jeopardized a recognizance mission to save the man's life, at the end of the war. Turning back saved two man, but his superior — thankfully, already dead — Hiruzen Sarutobi, may the hell swallow him whole, gave a piece of his mind to his father, called him out in front of every single soldier available at the moment. 

His father got killed the next week. Jumped in front of a grenade. The next week the war ended. 

No one could call it suicide, but no one could call it anything else. 

His father was a war hero and a taboo.

Kakashi just lit a cigarette and went to the bathroom. 

Bit by bit people seemed to remember how to move, but nothing but whispers were heard. 

Fucking great. He fucked up the joke his friends sat up. What a great day. 

Cigarette on his mouth, his ziper down and nature calls being picked, Obito entered the bathroom and looked at him through the mirror. Kakashi shook it a bit, moving his legs and shut the zipper up. 

"Hey, man." He began, but Kakashi just raised his hand. 

"I know, I know. I fucked up."

"What?" Obito stopped with his hand halfway undoing his pants and turned to look at Kakashi. "Fucked up?" he turned his whole body, the fly was already open and he was wearing some green boxers. Damn Gai and his awful but comfortable Christmas gifts. "You didn't fuck anything up. Well, maybe _the wall,_ but besides that you did what every soul has been dying to do for ages."

"Shoot the wall?"

"Point a gun at Danzo." A wide grin splattered in his face. "I don't think there is a person in the world that doesn't want to shoot the bastard. I sure as hell would happily oblige."

"So I didn't fuck the whole joke up?" he sounded uncertain, the ashes of the cigarette falling into his chest, long forgotten between his lips. 

"Oh, no. You probably just presented us with the most exciting thing since the time Boss got hit from that old lady, with the red purse."

Kakashi gave a low chuckle at the memory. He then noticed his mask was pooled at his chin.

"Oh, fuck."

"Oh, yeah, boy." Genma entered the bathroom with a smile flashing all the teeth without dropping the fucking senborn. He was eavesdropping. As if it was a first time. "Your face just rented me so much money that my payment is jealous."

"You obviously had the stupid bet over my face, right?" Kakashi sighed as he drew another drag. Genma was shamelessly pissing while talking to them. Not that it was a first time. 

For Heaven's sake, he once picked up a call in the middle of sex. 

It was worthy, though. 

They didn't think such a petite woman as the one that was with him that night had such a good punch. Hearing the breathy moans at the back and trying as hard as they could to shut them out was happily regarded with his purple eye. 

He was extremely cautious with his crotch for the next month, as well, so the woman really gave him a piece of her mind. 

And Kakashi knew how fierce she could be — she was his ex, after all. 

"Today beats the old lady."

"If you take this sentence out of context, you sound like a monster slash asshole."

"For beating the old lady?"

Kakashi just raised both of his eyebrows.

"Now, now, let's get down to business, gentleman." Kakashi leant on a sink, crossing his arms in front of him, cigarette hanging from his lips — he's a cowboy kid.

"Oh, fuck you." Genma slapped his hands at his sides, dramatically sighing and turning back. "Greed is a sin."

"A lot of things are. Pour it up."

"Oh, Kakashi, come on, I was going to one of those shenanigans tonight."

"Well, well," Obito intervened, that wild grin of his, cigarette lit as well, leaning on one of the cabinets' door. "A law server going to illegal clubs much?"

"Fuck off, Uchiha." He gave him the middle finger, which Obito answered with his own.

"Fuck the illegality." Kakashi said, dropping the cigarette. "Hand me the money, Shiranui." The most innocent smile on his face. 

"Come on, Genma. You will survive. At least you won the fucking bet." For God, Obito was pouting.

"Not going to share it with you." Kakashi added without even lifting his eyes from the bills. 

"Which was the bet? I swear to God I want to kill the idiot that gave the fish lips idea." Obito was so frustrated he almost burnt his fingers when he drew his cigarette from his mouth.

"The bet was that I'd have a dimple."

"A dimple?"

"A dimple." Kakashi nodded his head with the most satisfied, innocent smile ever, just a shadow of the dimple there.

"A dimple." Obito said for the third time.

"Repeating won't make your bet change, dear Obito."

"Oh, come on. A _dimple_?"

"That's the beauty of it, Uchiha. No one bought the bet, so, all the money came straight to me."

"And to me." Genma said with his forever whatever it is between his teeth.

"Why do you get something out of this, Kakashi?"

Kakashi lifted his eyes and, yep, Obito was still pouting.

"You are betting over my face and you think I wouldn't want some?"

"Be altruistic."

"With my face?" The man's smile was huge and full of humour and — yep, there was the dimple. 

"Which you bet on, Cry Baby?"

"Shove down your own balls, Shiranui." Obito crossed his arms and the pout remained, as he was a small, spoiled child. 

"God, you look like a nine year old."

"At least I am not "too old for it, grandpa"." He said in a mocked voice and his eyes glimmered.

"Gonna shoot you, next."

And with that Kakashi left the bathroom, his wallet full and his cigarette dusting his vision. 

A three centimeter hole smiled at him from the wall.

* * *

It was already past 10 PM. Sakura hasn't returned from her trip to the grocery shop, to buy the _supplies_ for the week. What they needed to make the bathtub gin was to produce ferment, and they could use corn sugar, fruit, beets or even potato peels, then they'd mix it with glycerin and a key ingredient — they choose to use a hint of hibiscus flower — and a touch of juniper would as a flavoring to turn this highly, scary, oh Jesus why, potent liquid into a rank of some sorta of gin, they needed to start it down by half. 

And that's how the bathtub came in handy: the bottles offer were too tall to fit under the spigot in the kitchen sink, so they used the one in the bathtub. But the taste was disgusting — although, it wasn't their problem. Bartender in Desjardins blended ounces of it with various mixers from bitters to soda pop, juices and fruit garnishes, to hide the flavor of the strong-shit-forbidden alcohol and thus the cocktails were born. 

Ino worked at one spearheads downtown, forty minutes from their new place. Tsunade had a fling with the owner, a man named Hiruko, who they never met, not even Ino. He was a standoffish and Ino didn't give a shit about knowing her boss or not. All that mattered was that, at the end of the day, she had money to sustain herself and her son. 

Although being one of the producers of the gin, she wasn't the one that dealt with it. The very alcohol she produced was the one around the tables, small sips from tall glasses, jazz playing in the background and the promise of the day the police would find them. No one cared. It was a part of town that was inconspicuous due its obviously: it was in the middle of a quarter full of fancy restaurants, hidden underground a nice family like restaurant that during the day was just a place with pasta, but its underground held the cigars the patrons so loved and the whores the government so chose to ignore. 

Women were treated like the gin, nowadays, just a product of a city full of corruption, loud music, shining cars and wealthy men, exposing their prices. Nothing less, nothing more. 

Ino was completely adamant in her choice of being a waiter and nothing more, but the prices kept getting higher and her paycheck wasn't changing. 

The first time she agreed on being a "companion" she took a tranquilizer. And threw up in the sink of the restaurant. The second time was easier. And so, her shifts extended. 

Sometimes, all they asked was for company, to display the beautiful girl sitting on their lap or smiling logged with their arms. Some wanted more. 

And, after Itachi's fever having last five days, she gave up to _more._

She was a whore. A mother. And Sakura didn't know about it, and Tsunade wouldn't tell her. 

Ino guts were turning when she looked at the clock and realised it's been almost an hour that Sakura left. Her mind was spiralling in one thought alone: they got caught. No, not they. _Sakura._ And she would go down for both of them. 

So when Ino heard the faint sound of sirens, her heart stopped and it took all her mighty to keep her cool — Itachi was asleep in her arms. She saw the lights outside her window and her mind was shouting desperately. So desperately she took a sip of their own gin. It tasted like shit. But it was alcohol and if she was going to jail, she might at least be wasted until reality sunk in. 

The sirens were coming to a stop and she had already downed half of a bottle — it wasn't that big of a bottle, but she was dizzy already. _Good_ , she thought. Though, the police car didn't stop at their door. They turned left the last corner and the sound with the lights were gone, leaving Ino making her knuckles go white with the strength she was holding the bottle. And, then, she did what she always did when panicking: she fucking throw up. 

The motion awake Itachi and she couldn't contain the small wail that left her lips. 

"Sakura?" she asked tentative. "Is it you?" No, dumbass, it's fucking Santa. Of course it was Sakura. The police kicks your door down, they don't turn the knob with keys twinkling. However, she was met with nothing. 

The door was closed.

When she turned up the light, she saw Sakura leaning into the kitchen sink, her head down. 

"Sakura? Is everything alright?"

When the woman turned around Ino knew that things were far from alright. 

"It's mom. She's in a coma."

* * *

Sakura marched out of the hospital room with _that_ look on her face. There are only five female doctors in the hospital, aside from Tsunade. Ino doesn't work there, but she is the only female staff at the lab. The nurses are mostly women and it is the best a woman in the medic field can hope for. That's what she's been told ever since she first opened her mouth to tell their parents she wanted to be a doctor. Her mother laughed and her father snorted slash snored, 'cause he feel drunk asleep again. Her mother told her to dream only what could fit in her. She didn't mean to crush her dreams, she just didn't want Sakura to suffer. 

So when she became med school, she took her mother out for dinner. Just the two of them. They laughed and drank expensive wine 'cause once in a while you deserve it. 

And then, they found out. 

It became as a pneumoniae. They treated and they thought everything was okay. Her mother coughed a lot, but then again she work at the factory, she breathed smoke all day. Sakura tried to warn her, but what could she do? She couldn't leave her job. But then her father left them. It came without warning. One morning he was there and in the next one he wasn't. He didn't even leave a note. They were desperate until a friend of her mother told her she saw him in a bar — with a younger woman. Her mother cried herself to sleep for almost a month.

* * *

"Woah, woah, woah, woah"

"Obito.. what the fuck? You don't need to make the noises of the siren. It is making its own noises."

And it was indeed. The _woun, woun, woun, woun_ was echoing like a scary promise through the desert streets. It was almost three in the morning when the Boss came out of thin air and slapped on the table of the bullpen, making every almost asleep agents wake up and making Kakashi spill his fucking coffee, as much as it made him hit his head on the toilet door due the shock. He was grinning like a maniac and if Fugaku Uchiha was grinning probably some poor cat was in flames with its old lady stuck on the stoven, and the sick fuck was beaming — like the sick fuck he is. 

But what made Kakashi almost fell off of his chair was when Minato fucking Namikaze walked through the door. He hadn't seen his captain ever since Kushina died of cancer and Naruto fell onto drug dealing, after becoming a complete addict himself. With his boyfriend, Sasuke, (yeah, the same Sasuke that was Fugako's boy) which just made the man sink. Minato wasn't disappointed on his son being gay. He was disappointed of him becoming a junkie. Their whereabouts were unknown. 

Apparently, until now.

So that's why the sicko was smiling. He was going to catch his son, that, along Naruto, became chief of organized crime, the Head of the new gangs perpetuating the town.

He was untouchable. 

Every city had his own bad guy running the dirty business, but Naruto, along with Sasuke, were the kings. And Kakashi and Obito knew how much it all hurt Minato, how it crashed him. When Kakashi was being plain honest with himself, a thing he usually didn't regularly, he was shocked when Minato wasn't one that killed himself in the beginning of the 20's. He was sorta retired. He moved to a small town and run things there. Two years ago, Kakashi heard he decided to take on vacation - and the man disappeared. He always sent Obito and Kakashi letters, updating about his life, the small town crimes, the big city ones before he left, grocery stores and everything Minato wanted to talk about. And the both men always answered with the same enthusiasm. They, all the three of them, just wished Rin was still there with them.

As for Kushina dying while Minato was in the war, Rin died right before their eyes. She was one of the medics that dared to go and help their comrades. Only 20 returned. And Rin wasn't one. 

The enemy attacked their base in the middle of the night and she was the one that noticed, before the sentinels. She woke Kakashi, Obito and Minato desperate. After all, they were all the family she had left. She was a gipsy, but manage to escape and they took her under their wing. She became a sister to them and a daughter to Minato. She was Naruto's big sister and there isn't a smile as bright as Rin's was. Obito was completely in love with her and there, in the middle of the war, they made love for the first time, just for her to die a month later. 

(The world was still to know the terrors her and her fellows would go through 15 years from now.)

When the war ended, the grief was too big and for too many people. It was hard to pick one to cry more after for, but they couldn't feel less for Rin. Countless _friends_ died during the war, but they were a _family._ Kakashi was an orphan, having never known his mother and losing his father when he was five. Suicide. The word hurts. Obito lived with his grandma, never knowing about his parents (but the word was they were executed. A couple years ago, when Obito decided he wanted to find out the truth, he threw up after seeing his parents's pictures of the crime scene and reading all the torture they went through. He never told his grandmother the truth. She didn't know it either, so he left her die thinking they died in a car crash.) until she died a year before he went to war, and, despite sharing his last name with half of the fucking world by what it seems, he didn't have anyone. Minato lost his mother caught in a crossfire and his dad just vanished. And Rin, well, gipsy are seen as dangerous, so she lived her whole life on the run, until they were all gone. The four of them stick together. They shared a shitty apartment 'cause they didn't have the money, so they climbed their way to the top - except it wasn't "the top", it was just surviving. When they returned from the war, Naruto was already gone. Fugako wanted his head for "corrupting Sasuke" even though everyone, including the man above mentioned, knew it was the other way 'round and that Sasuke was the one that fucked Naruto up. 

The family, then, was split apart. Rin was dead, Minato was gone, Kakashi and Obito had a serious fight and they didn't see each other for a while - but it just took them run on one another in a bar and go full fight club on each other. After having blood of the other in their hands, they never split apart again. But they were still family, two brothers missing his dad and his sister/(what the fuck Obito)lover. 

(If you try hard enough, Obito could see Rin as a distant cousin, so there was nothing wrong in falling for her. But they never teased him about it. He was in love with her the moment she walked in.)

So, here they were, almost ten years after the end of the war and when Minato spot them, he opened the biggest of smiles that made him look ten years younger, despite the chicken feet at his eyes. Kakashi felt himself smiling wildly back, his eye crease almost closing it and Obito damned all and every rule and marched to the man and embraced him in a tight hug. Kakashi knew he was crying and Minato looked like he wanted to cry too - but not sure if for seeing Obito again or for grief of hunting his son. 

The whole office went quiet as the man entered. If Kakashi was considered a War Hero, Minato was a god. He made his name even between the enemies. He was a role model and with merit.

Obito untangled himself from the man and straightened his clothed just to hide his eyes and swallow the tears. For the first time since Rin died, Kakashi wanted to cry too. But this time from relieve. He was afraid the next time he'd seen Minato would be at his funeral. 

Fugako's grave voice told them to go to the conference room as they finally got a trail.

Obito was rubbing his head, but he had a smile on his face. He was a handsome man, actually. His features weren't extraordinary neither was him. He was a simple guy, kind and gentle, always up to help whomever needed. His brown hair was always spiky, but not in a way as Kakashi's, if was much more discrete. He had brown eyes that felt like melting chocolate. The ugly scar he had in the whole right side of his face didn't make him less beautiful, especially when he was smiling. He was the opposite of Kakashi and that's why they worked so well together. Obito was always eager and excite and not even the war managed to break him. Everyone liked him, because it was impossible not to. Kakashi loved the man, for heaven's sake. He would jump in front of a flying bullet any time for him - and he knew it was mutual. They've grown as brothers and, as brothers, they missed they burrowed father. 

Minato had a stern face, so different from the man he used to be. Minato was known for being pretty much like Obito. He was kind, considerate, helpful, lovable, intelligent, benevolent. He was really a God. To put in a way, Kakashi was the brain, Obito was the heart and Minato, well, Minato was the meeting point, the clue that stuck they all together and there are bonds you cannot break. 

So, when he wasn't smiling, it was a heartbreaking sight. He was finally after his own son, a boy - no, a man - that was now known as cruel and magnanimous. He was the head of it all. Him and Sasuke fucking Uchiha. The very son of Fugako. The difference between those two was that Fugako was a man that get off in his job, because it involved death. He was truly a sick fuck and Kakashi despised him. As well as half of the office. He still had his mad man smile and the sight by itself was terrifying, but only worked as a fuel to everyone seek for justice - and revenge. Some officers also had friends or family member that were victims of them. 

The graffiti around the whole fucking country made them known. The Akatsuki. A weird name, but then again Naruto was a japanese food. The group had its represents scattered all around. They weren't the kings. It was a cross fire every single day between gangsters and gangsters and gangsters and people died. Money drove them all. The government was fucking stupid as well. The situation was completely out of control, but they kept the goddamn law - that has been broke since the very first day and who produced and provided the alcohol was _poor_ people trying to survive in this economy. Some got rich, really, but mostly, people were breaking the goddamn law because they didn't have food to it. While those as Naruto were feasting with their expensive cigars and whores. 

"Today, we have good news." 

The sentence seemed to lighten the mood in the room, even though Minato remained stoic. 

Fugako smiled. A shiver ran down Kakashi's spine. 

"They are in town. They've come to New York."


	4. The hospital gown will suffer a revolution

Sakura didn't cry. Everyone has its own coping mechanisms and Sakura's was working herself out and fucking around. 

The first part, everyone knew. She was well known for being that one that always worked too much and too hard, whose name was "Work", but no one knew about her other side. It's easy to slip out when you're a doctor. You're always trapped in a hospital, you never have a steady schedule, accidents can happen at any time and it can trap you all over again for hours. No one needs to know that the bags under your eyes are from hours fucking strangers and not fixing broken legs. 

And that's how she found out Ino was being cheated. 

Sakura was at a bar five years ago when she met Naruto back. He was a full grown man, with a ginger beard and his forever blue eyes, his irises shining in the dark. He didn't ask why she was there and she didn't mind to tell. They slept together, but just after a week they ran onto each other. It could've been the start of something beautiful, but both of them had other plans. Ino fell in love with him, with his coming and going, with him visiting them every week, taking them out for dinner, making those jokes and making everyone smile. Naruto now made big money and would always take the girls out to the fanciest places and buy them whatever they wanted. They never took advantage on him, having proud of their own achievements, even though they were considerably smaller, but he'd always spoil them when he was in town and that's how they ended up with a collection of high heels they had to sell and jewelry they had to garnishee. But, at the time, it was fun to be picked up at 8 and laugh like there was no tomorrow.

He still had that big smile of his, but his innocence was gone. He fought the war, he'd seen things she couldn't imagine. It was perfectly forfeiting he took his luck as a businessman. With Sasuke along. 

Sakura had it bad for him, but the truth was that she fell in love with the image of his younger self than Sasuke himself. In the end it didn't work out because it never began. The reality was that she fell in love with his brother. It was platonic and most of their time they just spent talking about things every person on Earth would find boring, such as conspiracy theories, philosophies, old books, new books, the Galaxy, global warming, economy, the secret life of penguins, etc. Usually, everyone would go to bed and they would stay awake just talking and smoking until the asher was spilling. 

They kissed only once, when Sakura was bold and drunk enough to stand on her tiptoes and kiss him. Itachi smiled and she would never know what he was about to say because Sasuke opened the door and she had to say goodnight. They didn't see each other for weeks, but it was all pretty clear in her head that it was one sided and it was okay for her. 

One day, Itachi was summoned to go to the Vietnam, as he was a fucking war hero. 

He never came back. 

A few years later, Naruto and Sasuke killed themselves — leaving Ino and a newborn behind. 

They were getting more and more distant everyday, Naruto was coming out distant and cold, but to find out your husband killed himself and you're alone with a child under your arm was the scariest thing in the world.

Sakura never had the heart to tell Ino she saw Naruto with a girl with a long black hair and a pair of breasts to compete with her own just a month before he died.

When Itachi left Sakura met this nice guy named Sasori. He was much older, but some of him reminded her of Itachi. He was quiet as well, introvert, a genius and maybe that's what she was drawn to. Her heart was is smithereens, but the city that never sleeps doesn't leave free time for you to grief. They got engaged the same month Ino and Naruto did. She just said yes for the same reason he asked: desperation. The economy was too fucked up and the war was still chasing them all, so a lot of people got married and killed themselves. Simple like that. 

Sasori was murdered by an organization — drug dealers. She had her doubts his work as a chemist wasn't true because he made way too much money, but she never even learnt what really happened to him. It was a closed casket, but the word was he was shot down. They were married for less than an year and Sakura didn't love him. He was an alcoholic, but he was never mean to her. She just didn't love him. 

At least they had a body. Itachi's was lost somewhere in foreign lands, Naruto's and Sasuke's were like sheets of paper, their features unrecognizable. She didn't have the stomach to go through the whole autopsy and Ino never truly asked. She was the one that signed the papers, but she ran from the morgue and decided to hide in someone else's bed. She has no idea what his name was. He was older, but looked like Naruto, with the same eyes that always made it look like the sky was down in the Earth. Maybe that's what drove her toward him. They met three more times and then he fucking vanished. Men in New York seem to have a gift of just disappearing. 

But they were all gone now. All of them. All dead — except for the Naruto's older version, but he could be dead as well from how things were lately. 

So that's where she found herself. At one of those pubs underground, getting drunk with her own booze, flirting with some not so random man, that might or not enlighten some psychologist — when _that_ blonde hair met her eye. And just like that Sakura Haruno flipped. She was fucking furious. 

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" She heard herself yell so loud it over heard the crowd.

"Shit." Was all the blonde bartender said walking to the exit door, hurriedly.

"You can't outrun me!" Sakura screamed. The bartender discarded the apron and opened the door to the cold air, taking within a pack of cigarettes but dropping the lighter on the floor. For a second, there was the consideration of picking it back, but just looking it back at Sakura was motivation enough to run without the lighter. Sakura just pushed some men aside and crawled under the balcony to the exit, ignoring the other bartender protests — but picking the lighter with such reflexes medics usually don't have.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

The bartender had nowhere to go, it was a dead alley. Turning slowly to face the red faced really, oh really fucking angry Sakura, there was a loss of words for a moment and all that was offered was 

"Work?"

To which Sakura reacted widening her eyes and arms and turning around herself, baffled. 

" _Work_?" She said as the word grown three legs and offended her. Honestly, it echoed. 

"Yeah, I've got a fucking job too."

"As a bartender?" Incredulous. Sakura was fucking incredulous. My sweet baby Jesus on a stick.

"What is wrong with being a bartender?"

"You are a _woman,_ _Ino_!" The last two words weighted the whole world and Ino swallowed hard. 

"I got fired, ok?"

" _You what?"_ She shrieked and Ino struggled, covering her ears with her shoulders.

"Do you have to be so loud?"

"You're one to talk."

Ino raised an eyebrow to the innuendo and just like that the tension dissipated. But Sakura was still angry as fuck. This wasn't one of the bars you can fool yourself as labelling them as respectable. She was in a dirty part of town.

"How did you even end up here?" Sakura asked with more defeat than anger.

"You should be asking this yourself." Ino said full of malice.

"Don't slut shame me!" She was laughing, even with pointing the finger. She shook her head and lit a cigarette for each of them. Is it wrong for a doctor to smoke? Yes. Is it possible _not to_ in the 20's in the back alley of an illegal bar? No.

Well, Ino found out about her second part of grief: what people would call being a whore. Of course Ino knew Sakura slept around and, to Sakura's disappointment, she knew more than Sakura wanted to admit, but now she just found the source. They were both in the same shitty boat: Sakura cooked the drinks that Ino served while Sakura also fucked the men getting drunk with their alcohol. Splendid. Their parents would be so proud.

"'Am not slut shamming you, just, really, Saky? That last guy looked like a bag of beets."

"He did not!" A pause. "Maybe he did." Another pause. "Ok, he really did." Ino put her hands on her hips, a smile playing on her lips. "The sex was good, 'k, though. Some good looking ones..."

They both hissed.

Sometimes it is healthier for the heart to catch a bad looking but good in bed than a good looking but bad in bed. Pretty faces don't cover up for the lack of orgasms or when men finish up within 4 minutes. Sometimes, the cigarette after sex lasts more than the sex itself.

"Yeah, I know, I know. I remember one. A tall, angry, baritone voice, strong, tanned one. All muscles, no dick."

"Wait, are we talking about the same man?" Sakura raised both her eyebrows, smoke getting in her eyes.

"Hum, Kakuzu?"

"Yes!" Her eyes widened.

"Bitch!"

"Slut!" They said at the same time. 

"He was terrible, wasn't he?"

"By terrible you're being really kind."

"True that." 

There, at the alley in the back of an illegal pub they weren't illegal women in an economical hell like broken country, risking everything to live with decency and have food on their tables and provide the best of health for their loved ones. There, they were just the two best friends bickering and laughing at the expense of each other. 

Until they heard the sirens.

"Everybody! Get your fucking hands in the air!" 

Minato was the first to enter, Fugako was the first to shout. 

The shenanigan was full that night, despite being a wednesday at eight. About a hundred people were at the small crowded placed, mostly composed by men and their whores — there are no _women_ in this establishments. You're either a man or a whore. There's no in between. 

That's why Ino was so fucked up in being a bartender. If a single soul laid eye on her and eyelash recognized her, she'd be doomed. All doors would close for her, even the market. No one wants to be seen with a whore, even if it is exchanging apples or selling shoes.

There was the right part of town for those. The part of town that was precisely were those night clubs were. They were fancy, expensive, luxurious, pompous, exaggerated, but only on the inside — and the underground. The outside were poor bakery shops, grocery stores, polish man's shoes, barber's shops. The underground was the real shit. That's were the real _people_ were. Those that lived upstairs were worth nothing, they were just the carpet they cleaned their shoes on. And, of fucking course, the deals were way beyond just illegal alcohol. Drugs, prostitution, gangs, assassination, gambling, the whole deal, there was its land. 

Sakura knew these places due the fact 95% of the staff was male and they weren't all that inconspicuous when talking places and, honestly, she wasn't at the heart of the crime scheme, so it wasn't that hard to catch the subway and drop by the ugly part of town. So many years did the trick. Men didn't mistaken her for a whore because of an unfortunate accident: a hair clip Naruto gave her. Of course it was a cherry blossom and it was hella expensive. Once, in the bar counter the bartender came to her and asked when her man was arriving which made her so angry she "accidentally" broke the glass she was drinking from. The man apologized and said that no one would mess with her because of that, as it was an expensive piece of jewelry either she was a very special and private whore or she was the madam cheating on her husband. Sakura never let go of her hair clip and never was taken as a simple whore, even though the fact of having women being categorized like that, like breed dogs made her cry more than made her happy.

That's where Tsunade came from. That's how Tsunade knew so much and helped them with their business, from the inside. All Sakura knew was to sit down in the chair and get drunk and choose someone to sleep with. Tsunade wasn't like that. She was what could be called a "double agent", except that she worked only for herself. And for her girls. They owned her the whole world.

A 24 year old bourbon was the first thing to get hit from a bullet and crumb into the floor. The whole place followed.

The patrons rose from their seats and the scene broke into half: 50 tried to shield or scape and 50 drew their own guns and decided to fight back. 

There was going to be a lot of innocent blood on the carpet tonight. There is nothing so loud as the sound of innocent lives being taken.

"Don't shoot to kill!" Minato yelled at the top of his voice, just as Danzo stepped in and made the stupidest thing someone can do in a crossfire: he fucking went to the front line - without a proper target - without proper backup - without realising _whom_ he was aiming for. And, when Minato jumped in his direction to intervene it was too late. 

Danzo was at the floor, his right arm a whole gash and his face two shades too pale to be health. His arm was nonexistent, it has blown up, leaving small traces of bones and some tissues. He didn't get just one shot from one simple gun, but several from a 48. But that sight, no matter how brutal and gut turning it might be, wasn't the worse.

The true horrifying sight was what was behind the smoke that shot Danzo: a strong pale hand, in a dark blue smoking, rolled to its elbows, revealing pale arms and some scars, a rich crimson red shirt underneath and a face, that face, a cigar hanging from his lips, his blue eyes piercing, his blonde hair tamed. Naruto's stretched hand was holding the gun that destroyed Danzo's arm and he didn't look sorry or disturbed at all when he vanished in the mess, a body of a redhead mistress dead by the side of his prior seat.

* * *

"Ino, I need your help."

"But, Lady Tsunade, I don't even..."

"I don't care. Do you know how to attach a IV bag and how to put on an oxygen mask?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Knows how to stank a bleeding?"

"Yes, ma'am?" She wasn't so certain anymore. 

"Knows how to fill files?"

"Yes, ma'a-"

"Then you're good to go. We're over loaded, kid. We need _everyone._ " 

Ino nodded eyeing the stethoscope, the chart and the coat they gave her. In the coat she read "Dr. Thomas" and her chart was rusted, but her pen worked and she knew what she had to do. So she opened the door to the UIC and let the pandemonium engulf her.

* * *

Sakura was losing it. 

She had barely time to check the vitals of one patient and tell how bad their situation was that other came within a blink of an eye. Fucking _police officers_ were there. They were never there. The police was snob and usually they used they own medics, but apparently they had a really rough night. By the rumours she caught over the coughing blood and punctured lungs was that the police acted on the illegal shenanigans looking for the Chiefs. 

The whole night was a blur. A very, very tiring blur. When she finally took a break, she grabbed a cup of coffee and downed it while taking a piss and lightning a cigarette — she still didn't smoke, she liked to tell herself. Doing three things at the same time was a second nature to her when it came to these nights.

After five minutes, she had to go back. She almost threw the cup of coffee at the toilet and the cigarette at the trash, but corrected herself at the last time. 

Shaking her head, she grabbed another coffee to guarantee she wouldn't inject oxygen into a patient when she caught a very disobedient silver hair. She smiled. 

"Leave it to me." She said, walking into the run where a nurse was clearly having a hard time convincing the man to _please, lie still, don't get up, you can't leave, don't take the IV, we didn't release you, you're are injured, my God_ and she was either on the verge of tears or beating him unconsciousness. 

She looked at Sakura in a way that expressed so much gratitude that probably she earned herself free lunch for the rest of the month. 

Kakashi still had the surgical mask on, but his smile was so huge it was seen on his cheeks and Sakura couldn't fight her own. He was half naked from his torso down, which just made the situation much more hilarious and the view much, but much more better.

"So, are you trying to sneak out or sneak in?" 

His smile just crooked, lifting one side of his lip and oh my fuck he is sexy. Even more without his pants. Every cop has this thighs? And Sakura was so filling a formulary to demand hospital aprons to be shorter, 'cause he definitely wasn't wearing any underwear but she _couldn't see_ because the damn thing was covering his butt.

He notice she was staring and his smile just turned him into the devil. She cleared her throat and smiled herself. Let them both go to hell then. 

He was reaching for his pants when she entered, with his head comically looking up, his torso was lowered, his hand extended, his other hand holding the thin material and Sakura couldn't stop herself from laughing. He was like a kid caught with his hand digging in the cake — except that, really, he could dig his hands at so many places. And how the hell did they get him out of his pants before out of his shirt?

"Sit, boy." He lifted an eyebrow at her command.

"You do realise I am older than you."

"You do realise I am not a teenager."

"It's just been a while no one calls me 'boy'."

"Well, I am your boss here, _boy._ "

"You do realise this sound kinky as fuck to a doctor, right?" Sakura rolled her eyes and went to her table to set up her equipment, trying to pretend that the heat between her legs was nothing more than just the night air swiping. 

He was pulling out his orange book the precise moment she snatched it and he looked terrified to death.

"No porn during my shift." He opened his mouth and raised his still gloved finger, but she cut him. "And before you say it, it is porn because I know porn when I see one."

He was baffled but recovered quickly and mumbled something under his breath that sounded like "the other girl was much more fun". 

" _Ayame_ " as in “ _the other girl_ " was not " _much more fun_ " because you were to give her a heart attack. Do you hate hospitals or you just like to mess around?"

"Both?" 

Sakura rolled her eyes, but her smile stopped, her whole body froze as she eyed his chart.

"You're a fed?"

"Yes, ma'am." He smiled proudly like a child. When she kept eyeing the chart he asked "Is something wrong?"

_shit_

"No, no." She dismissed with her hand. "Is just that I didn't think that the feds even walked into civilian grounds." When the words tasted too bitter she added. "No offense."

"It's okay. The bosses do tend to be a little... elitist. But today was exceptional."

"So I've heard. Take off your shirt."

Sakura said both sentences so fast she was surprised he understood her. She turned around to give him some privacy and to breath through her nose.

Even though the very last thing she wanted to give him on Earth was privacy to take of his shirt, but she was still a professional and too glad for not drinking a sip that night. Not sure if purely by law endurance or self control. 

When she turned around, he was fucking shirtless, but finishing putting his apron on and —

"You're wearing underwear?"

This time he laughed and she could see that smirk under that mask. Maybe she could bark medical orders and get rid of the mask?

"Yes, shouldn't I?"

Cocky bitch. 

Her eyes a slit, Sakura shrugged and walked to the bed he was sitting on, setting the stethoscope in her ears and asking him to breath deeply. 

"Where is your friend?"

"Obito?"

She nodded, taking notes. 

"I guess he, finally, won a bet. After twenty years."

"Twenty?!" She dropped her pen and he inclined to get it for her — she got to see his butt and she contemplated never picking up pens in her life, and he would never know "thank you" was for his ass and not for his actions. Maybe she should drop the chart next time. It would be harder for him to catch.

When he spoke, she broke free from her revelry.

"Told you I am not a boy." 

"Kakashi," she spoke matter of fact. "I saw your chart. You're 44. That's hardly old."

"And hardly new."

"Women don't like boys, anyway."

"Is that so?" He crossed both his arms and that made his biceps flex and she really, really shouldn't be taking so long with one patient. She had barely checked his vitals. 

"Of course. Say "31"."

"Thirty one. Isn't it 33 you ask us to say?"

"Just saved you the trouble to ask my age." She batted her lashes "But, really, where is he? I have to check him up too."

"Well, you see, there is this old lady..." Kakashi began to explain with his arms and all that could only be taken for a really, really fake excuse when a man came in literally being dragged by his ear. It would've been funny (fuck it, it was) if he wasn't a grown man, fully clothed in police uniform, covered in plover and some cuts, his situation pretty much like Kakashi's, by a woman whose grandeur and presence rivaled Tsunade's. 

Kakashi was on his feet in an instant and saluting — with nothing but an hospital gown. 

"Your Honour" he bowed. Sakura had no idea who she was, but bowed a little as well. 

"Hatake." The woman conceived with her head. She had a long ginger hair and huge breasts. She was tall, taller than Tsunade and her voice was rich. Her eyes were a dark forest green and she held a lot of insignia. But the truly shocking part was that she was _black_.

She was a _black woman_ in the federal police. And an important one.

"I truly don't know what is wrong with the two of you. This is not a game, Hatake." Her voice held so much disappointment even Sakura felt like cringing at the corner and never breathing again, but Kakashi held his stance, his chin tall, but not in defiance. You have to truly own your place in a task force - she was well aware as she had to earn for hers. 

"The operation was a fucking catastrophe, but there won't be no donut stop to chit chat. When you're finished here, go straight back to HQ." She then looked at Sakura, but said nothing. 

"You too, Uchiha."

The whole world went deaf after this word. _Uchiha._

Sakura felt the world spinning behind her feat and couldn't make sense of any thing that was coming from her mouth. She was saying something about this not being the right time to it and their presence was crucial but even in the drowning of her own world, Sakura could tell the woman (Mei) didn't want to share much in front of her - and that she noticed Sakura's odd behaviour leaning on the table and stopping from gagging.

"Doctor?"

She turned around way too fast. "Yes?"

Captain Mei was staring at her, head to toes, looking into her, trying to decide into pushing or let go. The men seemed to notice Sakura's two second slip odd behaviour, so she took a deep breath in and put on her fake plastic doctor smile. "They will be taken care of as well and fast as possible, Captain. Any use I can be of, I will be glad to complain."

Sakura was beginning to sweat under the scrutinizing look of the woman when a man without a fucking eye and a greenish silver hair ran into her, his face serious and whispered something to which she nodded. Looking one last time to Sakura, she could tell she bought half of her bullshit, but that was more than enough. She just nodded to Kakashi and Obito ( _Uchiha_ ) and that simple action kicked seriousness into them. 

She closed the door and Sakura asked Obito to remove his clothes and put on his apron. 

"Not that I a complaining - which I am not - or maybe I am because this ABS -" Kakashi shoved him out off the bed with a pillow and Sakura stifled a laugh. They really looked like children. "Fuck you, K-kashi." he was rubbing his chin. "Well, I was just going to ask why we don't go all naked as we always go in check ups."

"That's a fucking stupid question," he rolled his eyes, but added anyway "but I was going to ask it too."

Sakura was tempted to ask Obito ( _fucking Uchiha)_ to go all the way down to the lab grab them some new gaze, that she perfectly had in hand, so she could get Kakashi to go completely naked. Alone. With her. But she fucking couldn't and she was two seconds away from Tsunade marching in noticing she'd been taking care of one patient for five minutes. And Tsunade didn't give a shit if they were feds or kings. 

"You're not regular patients." She smiled at them, checking Obito's vitals, trying to keep her cool. "You're feds. The less we know, the better. Which is bullshit, once I know your blood type, but can't see if you have tattoos."

"We do." Obito fulfilled happily. Kakashi smacked his face. 

Sakura laughed at that. "You two look at a pretty good shape considering the night and you look good to go. None of you got shot or pierced in the neck or shit like that." She noticed too late she was swearing in front of patients, but the way that Obito was looking at Kakashi that, suddenly, decided to look anywhere but at her direction, made her want to use all her vocabulary. "Just need to run a few more simple tests and then you're free, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You can put your clothes back, except the shirt."

They began to dress and Sakura tied her hair in a higher ponytail and tried to make sense of what the hell was happening. Sasuke never mentioned living relatives besides Itachi. Their parents were dead and they didn't know the whereabouts of the rest of their family. Uchiha wasn't that common of a last name, but coincidences happen, so she shouldn't obsess over it. 

But she did it anyway. 

Obito's hair was the same deep, straight black. His pale face and pointy nose. His face was slimy and punctured, his features clear. He was nothing like Kakashi, though. Kakashi held in him some animalesco delicacy, like a painter slowly rising to the mountains to chose its kill, like a wolf watching a rabbit. Obito looked more like the rabbit, but a rabid one. Kakashi looked composed and Obito impulsive. They looked the two sides of the coin and that reflected even in their looks. Kakashi's hair was the pure moon while Obito's was the night's sky. They resembled Sasuke and Naruto and that was frightening. But Kakashi had something in him that made him look like royalty. Maybe it was the mask, the mystery, but he didn't look ordinary. He held an aura of its own. And so did Obito, but his aura was so much like the Uchiha's aura to feel close to comfort. 

"Uh" Obito cleared his throat and Kakashi shoot him a dark, angry look "where were you tonight?"

She froze for a second, but remembered how respected she was and if she asked the walls to tell 'em she was there the whole night, they would. 

"When hell broke loose? I wasn't here yet."

Deflect. That's what her father taught her. 

"Do you know what this is all about?" Kakashi's voice was much more soft. 

"All the shot people and police men and the fact my hospital looks like we came from a battlefield? Not really. Flex your fingers." She put the pressure object in his bicep and pumped the latex ball, watching it compress. His skin was hot and smooth and rose goosebumps where she touched. 

"You're aware of the bootleggers and bathtub gins, aren't you?" 

Not trusting herself to talk and glad she wasn't the one with her heartbeat being monitored, she just nodded. Obito spoke. 

"A lot of innocent civilian are involved into this, because of the shitty economy, but there are the big guys in the background, the ones that make the money spin. They've been out for almost ten years now. Ever since the war ended."

"I've heard of them. Your pressure is a bit too high and so is your heartbeat. Try not to over exercise for the next 12 hours."

Obito snorted, but it died shortly after with the look Sakura darted his direction. She checked his blood pressure and heartbeat and told him as well, except that his blood pressure was too low. 

"Eat something more salty and definitely avoid over exerting, it will only make it drop further. Put on your clothes."

She filled their data, still trying not to look too much at the last name or to stare at Kakashi's chest, once her heart was already too loud in her ears and she was acting on pure mechanica. 

"Excuse me." Someone knocked politely at the door.

"Come on in!" and

"Lieutenant!" were said in unison.

"Sorry to interrupt, Doctor, but I have to retrieve these two to the HQ right now."

"Oh, there won't be a probl—" Sakura was clipping her pen at the pocket of her coat when she stopped dead of her track, all her blood draining frozen. The man in front of her couldn't be nothing but a ghost. She couldn't speak. Her mouth fell open and she knew her eyes were too big, but she couldn't move. 

Too many ghosts for just one days.

"Hey" She jerked away as if burnt by the hand, looking terrified at Kakashi, who touched her to get her out of her trance. "Are you okay?" His voice was full of pure concern. Obito and the new man, their Lieutenant, were worried too, but they had that small touch of suspicion, the same Mei had and she couldn't blame them. 

Sakura shook her head violently, but couldn't quite speak. 

"Ha - I" She took a big breath, looking at the floor, one hand at her hip and the other at her temple. She looked back at them, forcing herself to function. "I just - today was just a very... odd day. I wasn't ready for... I just... I am sorry." She laugh, humorless. "I saw some ghosts today." She smiled, bitter. And then she added something that always cleared the bad situations. "The war…"

Even to her ears that sounded poor and alien, but they bought it. She didn't seem a fucking threat. Maybe just a high doctor or someone that spent 24 hours dealing with sick people and now gunshot and secrecy. 

And the war ghosts. They, as soldiers, have no idea as how it is to be the one that receive the injured and the dead ones, without being able to save them. So they pay a profound respect each time a doctor mention the war. Probably, the only thing that truly got her out was mentioning the war. After all, the hospital was crowded and some people were splayed on the floor at the earlier hours, when there was not enough staff to organize them all. That shitty night remembered poorly the sunny days of the war, but it saved her. 

Ironic. What took everything from her was now saving her — and only saving her because apparently she was encircled in lies.

"Sorry to disturb. I am sure we held a lot of your time." Obito said. He sounded so professional in the presence of the man. 

"It's okay, Obito. I can always make time in my agenda for you" she looked at Kakashi and, well, her heart lightened with the smile he gave her. After a short while, she realised she was pretty much hitting on Kakashi open in the day and added, even with her eyes traveling back at Kakashi at the last two words. "For you both. I will always have time for you both." She wanted to ask him on a date, take his shirt off, fuck him on the patient table, tell him she was a criminal, tell him his partner had the same last name her fiance, that his boss looked just like her best friend's baby and dead husband, cry on his shoulder, take a cup of coffee, ask him if her gin tasted like shit, ask him to handcuff her, but she settled for smiling. 

Obito was smiling too, knowing, and so was 

"Oh, and for you too Mr... Sir... Lieutenant...?"

"Namikaze. You can just call me Namikaze. Or Minato, if you feel like it." He gave her his best Naruto smile and the sound of _Minato_ tasted like salted caramel in her mouth and she had to take all her will to not throw up on them and politely smile while they left. 

All Sakura wanted was to get home and drink a whole bottle of her own shitty gin. 

Naruto's father was alive.

And he was the man she met all those years ago.


End file.
